Thankful Thursday on a Friday (again)

I am thankful that the last of the adoption paperwork is done!!!!! I mailed off our visa applications today and have signed and notarized everything for our agency. Now all that’s left to do is wait for our fingerprint appt. Our original fingerprints expire on May 14th and in order to travel they must be current. I wrote INS a letter last week requesting a fingerprint appt. Now don’t ask me why we must have new fingerprints done because I can assure you neither mine nor Rusty’s prints have changed. I find it hard to believe that INS can’t just pull us up out of their enormous data base and have them right there. Anyway, this is Thankful Thursday and not Whining Wednesday.

I am thankful for a really great time tonight. We met my sister Laurie and her family at IHOP so the kids could eat this. It was a little too sweet for Gracie so Rusty had to wipe some of the goo off and put regular syrup on them.

I am thankful that Mr. Kenny from our church got a good report from his Dr. last week. Mr. Kenny is a really wonderful man and brings so much encouragement to everyone he meets. He suffers from a lung disease diagnosed several years ago and to be honest he isn’t even supposed to be alive right now. Through the power of prayer he is here and going strong. His Dr.’s thought he might have some clogged arteries so after some testing and a lot of praying he only has slight blockage and it can be treated through medication.

It is Easter and it wouldn’t be a very good Thankful Thursday if I didn’t talk about what this means to me. Now I could just say I’m thankful that I’m a Christian and Jesus saved me. It’s a powerful sentence but I think maybe it’s used flippantly at times or we don’t take the time to understand what that means. He saved me……. It’s kind of like a really great example Rusty gave in church one time. I was walking in one direction, walking, walking, walking, walking, headed in the wrong direction, headed towards an end that holds no promise, no hope and no eternity. I asked Christ into my life and then I abruptly stopped, turned around in my tracks and headed in the opposite direction. This direction is filled with wonderful and amazing promises for my life, it is full of hope, joy and peace and a life that continues on when I leave this body and this world. I am a Christian! Being a Christian means different things to different people. This is what it means to me and why I’m thankful. I am in constant conversation and fellowship with God. I have allowed Him total control and access to my life. I have access to something that surpasses anything here on earth. I have peace in my life. Am I perfect? Oh No, ask anyone who knows me well. Do I do things and say things that I wish I hadn’t? Almost everyday! But I am forgiven and I have a great big God who loves me no matter what. I am but a speck on the tip of his thumb but he knows me by name and he knows the number of hairs on my head. He knew me when I was in my mother’s womb. I owe Him everything but instead He ask me for nothing but to accept Him and then He died for me so that I could stop in my tracks and start walking in a different direction.

This Easter what are you thankful for? If you are walking that same path I’m on then I am so happy for you but if it’s time to walk in the opposite direction then I challenge you this Easter season to start researching this man called Jesus and what this Easter story is all about.